5 Very Important Life Lessons That I learned In 2016

The year 2016 for me, has been a bit more of a stationary year compared to previous years- and I’m perfectly ok with that. Having returned to the states after spending an entire year in the Carribean, was proof in itself that I had some “unfinished business”. Spending a year overseas in the azure beauty of the Carribean from 2014 to 2015 was definitely a life-changing and mind-altering experience. It was an important period in my life when I experienced alot of self-growth and discovery. To stumble upon many kindred spirits on an enchanted island only helped my spirit grow even more. Every day of my life was spent walking the beaches from one end to the next, basking in the presence of the wind as it seized my worries and blew them elsewhere.

But see, that’s the problem. Only temporarily would these worries be suddenly forgotten. In the same fashion that a drunkard lifts a bottle of alcohol to his lips in hopes of drowning out his own misery, temporarily. So has he forgotten that the misery remains after the drinking has ended. So what can be done?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This brings me to lesson learned #1:
In the year 2016, I learned that you cannot use ‘escapism‘ as a form of solving problems from within. “You cannot ‘flee’ or ‘run away’ from self, because ‘self’ will always follow. You can only acknowledge what can be done to improve self and get to work. Then your problems will ‘flee’ and ‘run away’ from you.” Any sort of negative emotions you may be dealing with, or negative attributes you are trying to overcome, resides from within. Emotions, attributes, characteristics or even addictions that all stem from psyche and personality are immaterial abstracts or immaterial concepts(i.e ‘Reason, love’ ). They are intangible, non-concrete- concluding that you cannot put emotions in a lock box and put it up on the closet shelf to leave behind to come back to it later.

“This breakup has me depressed… I’ll just simply lock up the depression in this lockbox and voila!(solved!)”

“You cannot ‘flee’ or ‘run away’ from self, because ‘self’ will always follow. You can only acknowledge what can be done to improve self and get to work. Then your problems will ‘flee’ and ‘runaway’ from you.” – PeoplesBrain (2016)

Can I give you a bucket of #1? Not the substantiation or numeral of ‘1’ but the concept of ‘1’?

No I cannot. It is impossible. Because these concepts are inclusive to immaterial abstract laws. So do not treat your emotions as tangible abstracts that you can just ‘run away’ from. You cannot hop aboard a plane and fly away from your weaknesses. They will follow you wherever you go. So step up to the plate and conquer your weaknesses! And that brings us to lesson #2 learned-

This is one of those quotes that makes you immediately stop what you’re doing and stare off into a void of space. However, interestingly enough, we as humans tend to believe the exact opposite. In opposition, we possess the pre-defined notion to think that life is 95% what happens to us and 5% how we respond. But this is wrong on so many levels. This a mind-conditioning curse that goes centuries far back and emanates from the source of what we refer to as, “Human Behavior“.

Let’s take relationships for example. When two people go through a breakup, it’s obviously a heartbreaking experience (Well, in most cases…). History, countless reports as well as statistics has proven time and time again that heartbreak results in negative emotions, which in turn, causes negative reactions. Such negative reactions can make you do CRAZY things. It’s no wonder why they say, “Love makes you do crazy things.“ Perhaps, that is an understatement of an understatement to say the least…

So in essence, negative reactions to negative events, sourcing from negative emotions will ALWAYS lead to consequences and ramifications. Same goes for positive reactions to positive events, sourcing from positive emotions. Try and remember a time when something good happened in your life. Perhaps, newfound love? Or that awesome job that was handed to you after the victorious interview? Or maybe just a brand new haircut that made you feel better about your appearance?

Such positive events can lead to positive emotions and reactions. Someone who gained a new job may want to celebrate as a result of feeling a heightened sense of achievement and satisfaction. Or perhaps a couple who decided to have a baby shower as a result of excitement for their newborn soon entering the world.

Again, these are all examples of why a large percentage of your life is determined by how you react to EVERYTHING. Another prime example is an elderly individual who goes through life with a myriad of “shoulda-woulda-coulda’s (but didn’t!)” and suddenly feeling the sentiment that it’s too late…

Lesson #3: “Do not dive into new relationships with the intent of fixing a person who is already broken.”

For the love of God, this is probably the most important of the 5. The reason why I put this in my top 5 is because not only have I experienced this in the past, but I have witnessed close loved ones become victims to this vicious cycle. When we dive into new relationships, we become “blinded by love”. It’s funny because in most cases, we’re fully aware of the red flags in the relationship early on, but the abnormal, helpless powerful feeling of ‘love‘ causes us to quickly turn those red flags into green flags. But queue the yellow flags..

Now of course, nobody is perfect. And never ever will I ever believe that on this planet exists or existed a perfect, non-imperfect human being. If so, pics and proof or it didn’t happen. But in all seriousness though, we as human beings have to learn that a relationship requires both individuals to work on themselves respectfully. To fix what is broken within themselves on a personal journey with oneself. The other person can only help guide them and learn to deal with their ways in the process. I’ve also noticed that so many people go into relationships thinking that they can ‘change’ the other person. While at the same time focusing on the things that they can ‘get out‘ of the relationship and not so much, what they can ‘put in.’ We must look at relationships as an abstract contract of love and stop looking at relationships as a “business transaction“. For every output, there is an input- and vice-versa. That’s just how the world works. True love is about what you can give, lust is about what you can take away. So upon entering a new relationship or while being in a current relationship, really ask yourself: “Is this a person I truly love and will do anything for?” Or “Is this a person I only lust after for personal gain?” And if the person has issues and problems that they need to deal with personally, let them fix it. Please, do not put on your scarlet colored cape and play the ‘hero’ in the relationship to magically save the day. This isn’t Marvel or Capcom. Relationships are not founded upon “heroism”. Because in the end, you’ll only end up hurting yourself even more- as the other person’s problems intertwine with your own problems over time. And it will be a very painful and frustrating experience. Remember, people who are already broken have the tools to break hearts.

Lesson #4: “Self Employment is extremely essential for the coming years ahead.”Here’s why:

I’ll be completely honest. The more I research and discover more about what’s going on in the world politically and economically, the more I worry about how society will even make a living. For many years since I was a teen, I always had a passion for learning new things completely on my own and being able to support myself with those same passions. I like to declare myself as an “autodidact” in many different things. But now as a young adult approaching the age of 25, now I realize how the job market has become so obscured, that it’s turned into a classic game of “russian roulette“.

For example: Earlier this year I remember reading an article on Businessinsider.com titled, ”

Upon reading that article, it made me wonder if many people would even take it seriously. Robotics and automation sound so far-fetched to most people because they think it’s just an erroneous, make-believe sci-fi concept only found in Hollywood movies. But if we open our eyes, we can already see it slowly making it’s way into businesses and restaurants around the world. For example, as a young adult heavily involved in the IT field, in past jobs I have witnessed superstar workers getting hastily replaced by either some sort of new automation technology or their job being outsourced to a worker in a foreign country completing the job for a fraction of the pay. In addition, at my past jobs, higher-ups have told me stories of many people getting laid off as a result of data centers in the thousands or tens of thousands of square feet in size; being reduced down to a room full of servers due to Robotic process automation (RPA). To me, this is some very alarming and shocking news that I think no one should take lightly.

This is why I am so gung-ho on becoming self-employed. Having come from a family of entrepreneurs, this is something that was ingrained in my youth early on. For years, I have put forth blood, sweat and tears into taking my passions and establishing online projects and platforms that grant me a passive income. Even if it doesn’t replace my ‘day job’ income, I can at least say that it provides a very helpful ‘supplemental‘ income that only grows more and more with time, hard work and dedication. Until such a point when I can “be my own boss”, and become self-sufficient as I live off my own income and avoid clocking my brains out every morning to help the “big dog” accomplish his dreams and not my own. I absolutely refuse to spend the rest of my life in such enslavement.

In the simplest interpretation of the quote, everything happens for a reason. Closed doors, detours and roadblocks are there to protect us from people, places or events that just wasn’t meant for us. Perhaps, they were there to protect us from possible imminent danger? A possible breakup? Even a possible death? Once again, Human Behavior, by nature gives us the false presumption that closed doors, detours and roadblocks are a bad thing. But that’s not necessarily the case. As a result we often believe that we may have ‘missed out’ on a good opportunity, a chance at love, meeting our soulmate, and what have you. Which leads to negative emotions >which leads to negative reactions. See how the lessons in this article link together?

Simply put, it all protects you from paths & places not meant for you. As long as we as human beings can acknowledge this and take it to heart, we can avoid about 90% of all negativity that happens in our life. If not that- then we’ll at least learn to react in a way that reduces the negativity all together. And we’ll begin to become happier as we strive for self-fulfilment and self-love which I feel are the two most important, ultimate goals in our lives.

Thankyou 2016– You have been good and dearest to me. Another year that has come and gone that we will never experience again as time only progresses forward. 2017 shall be even more interesting.

"The system has made us all fearful of the threats of authority, Gullible, terrified people are easy to control and manipulate. People have a poorly developed sense of self and easily become prey of the predator. For example: Self-help gurus selling a book, businessmen, politicians, and priests....

The self-help guru says: "I can make you happy, successful, and rich! Just buy my books, DVD's and attend my very expensive workshops and seminars."

The businessman says: "Buy my goods and services and people will like you and you'll feel good about yourself!"

The politician says: "Vote for me and I'll make things all better!"

The priest says: "Life is an illusion. Earthly life is but an illusive version of your true eternal life. You MUST do what we say in order to gain entrance into Heaven!"

Then when all of the above methods fail, people blame themselves for not trying hard enough and then start investing in some other self-help guru, splurging on a different businessman, voting for another politician, following a different priest, and the cycle repeats itself over and over...

If you were at true inner peace with yourself and had developed a strong inner core from within, then none of this would matter. You would be unshakably secure in your judgement and instincts...."

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